“When he was very young, Ronald Kitaj ran away to sea. He joined the SS Corona bound for Cuba and Mexico, a fresh-faced Cleveland boy who carried his sketchbooks with him and knew, already, that art was all he wanted to do. And as he travelled, he drew. Before long he had lost his virginity in a Havana brothel and had plunged deep into the reeking taverns and alleyways of port life-a life that was to go on resurfacing, in bold, tortured figurative painting, for the rest of his career.”